Bleak
by Keynn
Summary: It isn't quite bankai, but Rukia's getting there. - Slightly IchiRuki


**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach**

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><p><strong>Bleak.<strong>

_Tiny, itty bitty IchiRuki_

"How do you fight a sword you can't see?" She grinned, the sword's white metal glittering. If he could see it properly and his eyes weren't deceiving him, it was disappearing as well. Shimmering white to silver then silver to nonexistent and then back again. Her body playing a similar trick. Confused he drew his own sword.

"What do you mean?"

The sword is gone now but her stance is that of a wielder and her hands are gripping air. She's shimmering in and out of existences but every few seconds he can see her. Around them the effects of it's specialty are reining in the elements and it's snowing lightly, swirling around her feet, up to her head so that her hair and clothes are flying sporadically. Icy pillars are stabbing in and out of the ground at random intervals and while they're annoying, he's dogging them easily

"Don't ask stupid questions." She growls, and lunges. And suddenly he's hit with the question full force and no answer to fight it with. Blood stains the falling snow a bright red and he's only got the time to stumble back and out of the way of the shimmering sword as it comes at him again. He smirks, because he thinks it's the lamest bankai in existences. Matsumoto's shikai disappears and it's about the same thing.

"This is it?" He grins, the bloods drying now and he can counter easily. He begins to laugh, and he watches her grow aggravated. "This is all you can do with your bankai? Make your zanpakuto disappear and a few icicles pop out of the ground?" The whole soul society knows she's not a top notch swordsmen. Even she does, and her bankai doesn't help her case.

Suddenly, his vision goes fuzzy and he looks down, a new hole appearing in his robes, he can feel the exit wound in his back and see the blood falling again. He looks up to her. She hasn't moved, her hands are in the same place.

"Wh-what's going on?" He growls. She jerks her hands to the side quickly and there's a crack like shattered ice. In his stomach is the tip of an icicle he doesn't know the origin of. "What the hell!"

"My zanpakuto can extend itself by adding ice to the tip. In shikai this is threw San no mai, shirafune and only when the blade is shattered." She states. "Sode no Shirayuki- Sleeve of the white snow. What do you hide up sleeves but tricks?" She smiles. The snow is turning into a thousand ice daggers, ripping threw his skin in ways he's not sure are possible by snow. He's dying.

"Dammit. . ." He falls to his knees, and she looks down at him.

"This isn't my bankai. It's an imitation- a half release of the reiatsu needed for bankai. I'm not there yet. . . but I will be one day." She holds her zanpakuto above him and he isn't sure if he's gone cold because of death or because of the ice suddenly piercing threw his head. His mask shatters. His eyes lose their gold shine, and just before he's gone he sees her. Her white clothes are a strange complement to her pale skin, ebony hair, and lavender eyes. The white, crystallized clothes turn back to black shinigami robes, the transparent thin blade turns back to the white graceful zanpakuto then to the sealed sword. There surroundings melt, the ice piercing his skin melt, too. And he dies.

Rukia sheaths her zanpakuto. The effects of the battle's earlier outcomes hitting her full-force. She looks down - her robes are tattered and red. _Vizards._ She shutters. Falling to her knees.

_ "Rukia!" There's a sudden kind of warmth that isn't coming from her body alone anymore and then a weightlessness- No ground. _

_ 'Ichigo.'__ She grips Sode no Shirayuki, and the front of his shinigami robes_. "_I'll tell you. . ." She mutters. '_once I reach bankai, I'll tell you then.' _And the world goes black._

_"Rukia? What the hell happened?"_

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><p><em>It's late and this is a near pointless piece of fiction. . . inspired by a fan-picture of Rukia's bankai in which Sode no Shirayuki was kind of transparent. . . I know, I'm lame for writing about something with no purpose. :') Oh, and I added Ichigo in there because gotta love me some IchigoRukia moments._


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